its a simplified version of what im doing.
i wasn't going to put that because it was unnecessary but since you asked.


the whole thing actually allows for
and that should answer the string question as well i believe.

it also has to be able to retain a sentence say someone wanted to enter a sentence. regardless if it's going to be used it or not.



thanks, that helped, thats actually the site im learning from.
i was on that page, and i had tried 'while loops' before but it didnt work, but now i know that's because i was setting 'a' = 5, instead of 'a'==5

so the problem's solved, thanks everyone that helped.